Political Science does serve a purpose

The State Journal recently did brief profiles of both candidates in the race for the 4th district seat on the Dane County Board. Greg Hull, a 22-year-old realtor and political science student, lost the same race two years ago to the same opponent, Sup. Bret Hulsey, a 12 year incumbent on the board.

Low and behold, Hull is in my political science discussion. I’m not a poli sci major but it’s a course on game theory and whatnot that I’m using to fulfill my quantitative reasoning prerequisite. I always thought it was odd that he wore a suit every class, although not as weird as him admitting that he was a Michigan fan on the first day.

Big 10 allegiances aside, I decided that I ought to meet the man, so I got him to squeeze 2-4 minutes out of his busy day to talk about the campaign.

The State Journal profile of the race was news to him, and he told me that they’d asked him to score his political views, from 1 to 10, 1 being very liberal and 10 being very conservative. He said both he and Hulsey answered “2”. Interestingly, none of this showed up in the article.

How will you convince people you’re not just a rep for the realtors association: Why do people have this idea that the realtors are some kind of Republican group…

Me (interrupting): Well the new supreme court rules were largely written by the ––

Hull: By the state realtors association. They’re more conservative. We’re not. There’s this idea that all realtors want is urban sprawl. That’s ridiculous. I have one guy who only sells ag land. He doesn’t want sprawl! Can I sell property that overlooks a polluted lake? What realtors want is property they can sell, which means we need a clean environment, good schools, and efficient transportation.

A major theme in Hull’s campaign seems to be the issue of shoreline zoning rules. According to Hull, rules supported by the majority on the board, including Hulsey and President Scott McDonell, impose stringent restrictions on any development within 1000 feet of a lake or 300 feet of “any navigable water.” Hull took particular issue with “navigable water,” which he says includes just about anything, including retention ponds and large ditches.

Hull said over 75 percent of property value in Dane County would fall under these shoreline zoning restrictions, which means that more and more property owners would have to apply for “variants,” which would require that owners install things like “rain gardens” to stop runoff into the lake. Whoever buys the property later has to maintain the rain garden etc.

3 Responses to “Political Science does serve a purpose”

I’m not in district 4, but I wanted to thank you for writing about local politics. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places, but it’s ridiculous hard to find information. I have only found LWV http://www.lwvdanecounty.org/